


Abandon All Hope

by QueenOfTheWesternSky



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheWesternSky/pseuds/QueenOfTheWesternSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren survives that first battle, and with his entire future gone because of his injuries, doesn't quite know what to do. Meanwhile Armin copes badly with the aftermath and Mikasa screams to have herself heard because at the end of the day, she said this would happen and as always, no one listened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_'How can I just stand here and watch them die?'_

That was the question Armin had been asking himself for what felt like forever, but truthfully couldn't have been more than a few moments. Just a few moments, and most of his squad was dead--the only one left aside from him was Eren and he...

Oh god, Eren.

Armin didn't even want to look, much less think about his best friend. No, he couldn't. Because even if they survived this horrific day, even if they did manage to get back, even if they weren't killed...everything Eren had worked for had already been taken from him.

But even those thoughts, already so dark, were abandoned when the sun seemed to be blotted out of the sky and a great shadow was cast over the tiny blonde boy--who was he kidding? He'd never been cut out for this, never been anything but a scared little boy, trailing after his two closest friends, people who had dreams, people who were going to do something with their lives--and all the blood disappeared from his face. 

He didn't know when he started screaming. Maybe when the Titan grabbed him, maybe before that, or maybe the screaming, the ear splitting screaming that he couldn't believe was coming from him, only began when he'd been tossed down the creature's throat.

And all he could think, the one thing that came through clear in the haze of fear was simply;

_'I don't want to die.'_

Though it seemed that the world had little regard for the wants of a scared little boy who hadn't even survived his first week in the corps.

Or maybe it did.

_"Eren!"_

And before he could formulate any sort of response, before he'd even managed to figure out what was happening, he was free, back in the light--not dead, _not dead._

Eren, brave, determined Eren was there, forcing the beast's mouth open with his own body, blood everywhere from the mauled stump where his leg had once been.

"You think I'm going to die here?" He seemed to be shouting. _No,_ Armin wanted to reply, _you've got way too much to live for to die here, for someone like me._

But then the Titan moved, and for the briefest moments, Armin was sure he was going to lose his best friend, he was going to be alone and have to face this beast. But no, for once in his life, Armin did something. He acted and it _worked._

He wasn't sure when he'd moved, or how it had happened, but he jerked Eren free from the Titan's mouth, it's teeth closing on one of his arms and there was a positively sickening crack as the bones broke but the limb survived (Unlike his leg, oh god, no he couldn't think about that right now, not if he wanted to keep it together, they had to survive).

Unfortunately (Or maybe fortunately, depending on who you asked), Eren blacked out from the pain--how he'd handled losing a leg but not his arm shattering was beyond Armin, maybe the pain had just gotten too much, a broken body unable to keep going. Everyone had to draw the line somewhere.

And Armin knew his line would've been ten minutes and two limbs ago. But Eren wasn't Armin, no, _definitely_ not.

He didn't know how they'd gotten away, or how they'd gotten down from the rooftops (Gear was a hell of a lot harder to use when carrying someone who was both taller and heavier than he was). But he had. He'd done it. They'd escaped with their lives. However little that was going to mean if this didn't stop soon, if at least one squad didn't manage to do something about the attack.

But Armin wasn't in the mood to think strategy or about the bigger picture. No, with one arm hooked under each of Eren's, his blood covering the both of them, all he could think was _'get away'_. Where was he going? Well, he hadn't put an awful lot of thought into it beyond 'away', but it seemed that his feet made the decision faster than his mind ever could.

Because really, when Armin and Eren were in trouble (though never before had they been in trouble of this magnitude, no, not even the last attack, the attack that left them all without family and home, had they ever been in this much trouble), who else would they go to but Mikasa Ackerman?

He didn't know where she was though. There was a whole city to search, but the elite guard had been posted near the inner wall, to help with the evacuation of civilians. And he had no doubt that was where she would be. (Why, _oh why_ , hadn't they let her do as she wanted, why hadn't they let her be on the same squad as Eren, like she'd asked to be? If Mikasa was there, none of this would've happened. No, because it was Mikasa. Their squad wouldn't be dead and maybe, just maybe, Eren wouldn't be the way he is now.)

When the echoing, thunderous footsteps were far enough away that he felt safer--but of course, not safe, there was no safe now was there?--he started screaming for her, without really thinking about what a bad idea it was.

"Mikasa!"

But the city was filled with people, all screaming for help from the Recon Corps (Ha, what a joke) or for their loved ones, missing or dead, or worse of all, eaten. The chances that she'd hear him? Tiny. Insignificant. Like him.

"MIKASA!" That time it came out like little more than a strangled sob. But it didn't matter now because it had worked. There she was. Mikasa, Mikasa, brave, reliable Mikasa. She'd never failed them before, no, she wouldn't now, she couldn't.

The moment that he caught sight of her, he watched as panic filled her. The relaxed fighting stance she'd had (Because of course, she was confident, not cocky, merely aware that she was damn good at what she did) went stiff, and her eyes went wide, fearful. The little intake of breath, like she'd forgotten how to breathe. He didn't blame her for it, no. But in the next moment, his entire body seemed to collapse in on itself, as if it was trying to say; _you did it, you got him to her, you're done now._

So when his knees gave way and he was left on the ground, still clutching Eren's unconscious self, blood smeared all over him (the first few moments, trying to figure out how he was going to get Eren out of there had not been pretty, nor graceful and blood had gotten everywhere). All he could do was scream and sob.

Mikasa didn't ask any questions--probably because her voice had escaped her--not about what had happened to him, or to Eren, or to the rest of their squad. She took one look at Eren, one at Armin, and simply _knew._

Armin wished he could say what happened next, but the second Mikasa reached them, everything went black.

_Thank God._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, Mikasa struggles to be heard. In the wake of a preventable tragedy, she wonders what will happen to what remains of her friend, wonders if there is enough of him left to carry on.

Mikasa is _beyond_ angry. At this point there are no words to describe the white hot emotion pumping through her veins with every painful passing beat of her heart. Fury and rage do not even come close to describing how she feels. The emotion, no, the _sensation_ flooding her entire being.

She could have prevented this, if only they had let her. If they hadn’t insisted on separating her and Eren, none of this would have happened. Maybe it sounded arrogant, but she didn’t care, she was beyond caring, beyond anything other than this overwhelming emotion threatening to make her chest explode. Because _this should not have happened_.

No one deserved the chance to extract vengeance more than Eren did--or if they did, it hadn’t occurred to her. It had been such a long time since anything else had crossed Eren’s mind, such a long time since anything else mattered to him except the chance to fight the monsters that had ruined their lives, that it was unfathomable that his only chance at it had been taken from him. He had been so close--maybe that had been the problem, he was too close, too close to be careful enough to avoid this. Though, if she were being honest with herself, she would know that most of them were not ready for this.

No training could ever prepare them all for the truth of combat. The reality of facing such raw carnage, none of them had been ready for it. But some had handled it better than others. Mikasa had always been the sort of person to deal with the immediate problem, and worry about the consequences later. Later, when the world wasn’t crumbling down, she would find the time to cry. And to do anything but scream and shout because _she could have stopped this, why didn’t they let her stop this? Why did Eren have to pay for someone else’s mistake? Why did it have to be Eren?_

She should have been grateful he was even alive--though, he barely was. When she’d found him, half carried, half dragged by Armin, more of Eren’s blood had been covering Armin that he’d had left in his veins. When he’d been brought in, he was marveled at--a true testimony to how much punishment the human body could take and keep going. They all wondered how he was still alive, Mikasa could do nothing but shake her head-- _of course he was alive, Eren Yeager was too stubborn to die, even at the hands of a titan._

And when they had wanted to give up--one particularly arrogant doctor had been bold enough to say that trying to save someone so far gone was nothing more than a waste of resources, a form of _cruelty_. Mikasa had been so enraged, her whole body was shaking, and she _refused_ to accept any other sequence of events than Eren surviving. He had to live. She was responsible for him, and he _had_ to live. Everything else was irrelevant. The world ending beyond the no longer quite so safe walls of the city did not matter, the titans did not matter, revenge did not matter, nothing mattered but making sure he was safe.

He would never fight again.

She hadn’t wanted him to fight in the first place.

She spends hours sitting in a waiting room, still covered in blood, sweat and grime from the earlier fighting, people are being rushed in and out of rooms constantly, because people had all made the mistake of believing the world had already ended, and all this was just in the aftermath but no, the world was ending, right then and there, and Mikasa was having no part in it. At least for now.

Officers had tried to make her leave--they were getting into the eleventh hour of Eren’s surgery, and she was still sitting there--saying that they had better uses for her, that she was an important member of the Corps, that she was gifted, that she was needed elsewhere. She had laughed, and then she had become _very_ quiet.

“No one, and nothing, needs me more than Eren needs me right now. I think you should leave before I do something that will make you regret coming here.”

They did as she instructed, and she had never been more grateful for having such an _impressive_ reputation to back her up. It gave her influence, power. But not enough to have prevented a completely preventable tragedy. If only she’d been assigned alongside him, he would still be whole. Perhaps more of them would still be alive.

The surgery ends, and the doctors, nurses and security guards don’t even try to stop her from going into his room. It is there that she sits by his bed--next to what is left of Eren Yeager, with his missing limbs and broken dreams--that she finally allows herself to cry. And though she is with him, she is completely alone, and _everything_ is weighing down on her shoulders. Mikasa had been prepared to die for this cause--to suffer and die and to try and believe, during her final moments, that her actions, her life, and ultimately her death, had meant something, had made the world a better place--but she had not been prepared to lose Eren.

It didn’t take a genius to realise that even if he were to wake up--and there had been so much blood loss, and he had been thrown around, battered, bruised and broken, so very much, that there remained doubts as to whether or not he would--that she would still have lost him. An arm, a leg, his dreams, his fire, his _driv_ e. Mikasa still remembered the first time their world had come crumbling around them, she remembered watching as Eren picked up the broken pieces of himself and stuck himself back together with nothing but sheer will, nothing but a dream, a need for revenge, for some kind of justice in a world that seemed ignorant to the concept. And with this, all of that would be gone.

Mikasa did not wait for her friend to wake up, she waited to see the many shattered pieces that had formerly made up Eren Yeager try to hold themselves together without the one thing that had kept them whole all this time.

She waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for this taking so long. Absolutely none. Sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, for Sapphire who asked me to and so I did.


End file.
